Boy, I'm still not doing well keeping y'all updated. Sorry, work and life are still not in balance. I'm hoping to switch to an early morning schedule next week. We'll see how that goes for writing and blogging. Which is the main thrust of this post, self-discipline. One thing I’ve been trying to be more strict about is sending out my work. I’ve been doing ok in that department this past month but I could be submitting more.

I got back a few more rejection letters since last update.. One, to Flash Fiction Online, actually had some folks enjoying it. That was nice to hear. Just didn't get enough votes to make it all the way. Two other form rejections and one semi-form rejection*.

I'm not overly discouraged. I need to write a bit more actively and use more active verbs. I was reading and analyzing some old Conan stories and noticed how many active verbs Robert E Howard used. It really brought those stories to life. I’m going to try something like that when I go back to revise some of my fantasy stories.

Smooth Running is still being edited...not that I’ve been DOING any editing these past two weeks. Work is part of the problem. Video games are the other. Yep, the Achilles Heel of many a writer has afflicted me, too. Currently “The Secret World” and now “Guild Wars 2” have me hooked. Based on previous track records, it’ll take a month or two for me to get burned out on them and get back to writing. Not terribly happy about that but that’s what’s happened before. Rabble.

Writing is a discipline and sometimes I can be undisciplined. Disciplining yourself is as important as learning correct punctuation and compelling characterization. I’m serious, it is as much a part of a writer’s craft as anything else. It might even be more important, because if you’re not writing, you’re not learning and not...well...WRITING. As character flaws go, this isn’t the worst but it’s still a flaw and it is something I fight with all the time.

Writing is like exercise, half the battle is just showing up. The other half, is just doing it. Not dreading it, not whining about it. Just showing up and doing it. You don’t have to do it perfectly but you do need to do it. I’m going to try to take my own advice...but after PAX this weekend. Oy, more video games, more temptation.

I have a few more thoughts about writing and I’ll try to get them to you as soon as I can.

*Form language, no feedback, but I got a name and actual written text instead of an autoreply.

Two more flash fiction pieces sent out, two more rejection letters back. S’alright, part of the game. I have another story, “The Body as a Ship”, that I’m going to send off to Penumbra Magazine for their Ray Bradbury issue. I didn’t deliberately write that story in Ray Bradbury’s style but it has a Golden Age feel to it. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m still writing and targeting Pro markets, with an eye towards getting my SFWA membership. But I’m starting to wonder if I should start looking at the Semi-Pros as well. I’ve sent a few stories off to markets that don’t pay professional rates and they’ve been more likely to provide feedback for their rejections. I know, complaining about form rejections was old when Mark Twain was doing it. Still, writers live off of feedback. Which is why finding a good writer’s group is so useful.

In fact, the Cloudslingers really helped me out with the last story I submitted to them. They gave me some good ideas to improve my ending, and endings are always hard for me.

Smooth Running edits are coming along. It’s not quite as time-consuming as I’d feared, though finding time to actually edit or write has been tough, work has been keeping me late. I may need to rejoin the ‘5 AM Club’ and start getting up and working early. That’s all for now. I’m going to send out another couple of stories tonight after work. Fingers crossed….

In life, as in writing, the anticipation of work is often worse than the actual work. This is what fuels procrastination in me and maybe others. It makes me put off doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom and, of course, editing.

I bring this up because I’ve been dreading editing Smooth Running for months. But now that I’m doing it, it’s…not so bad. There are some nit pics to take care of, a few corrections I have to revert from what my editor, Manny Frishberg, made. I have to write a scene here and there. And I may need to swap some other scenes around.

But it isn’t the life-ending doom I thought it would be. Is the book perfect? Heck now, Smooth Running was my first novel and I’ve learned a heck of a lot since writing it four years or so ago. I’m sure the same will be true of any novel I write four years from now. But it still works. It’s still entertaining. To me at least and if I’m entertained, odds are someone else will be.

So that’s my thought I want to share: whatever you’re dreading, it’s not that bad once you get into it. So, fellow writers, just do it. Just do the work. Just write, just edit, just send it out.

Short review: I really liked this book. Even if you don’t know or like the other ‘Malazan’ books, buy and read this. It stands alone and is a great fantasy novel.

Ok, background first:

Steven Erikson (Steve Lundin) created his ‘Malazan’* series with Esslemont way back when. Due to publishing and life shenanigans, Erikson’s books came out well before Esslemont started writing and publishing his. They’re both writing in the same world and often characters from Erikson’s books will play a part in Esslemont’s books.

I love epic fantasy, the bigger the doorstopper, the happier I was. (Now time is a limiting factor, damn it. But back in the day...) I came across the first Malazan books back in 2001, just before 9-11 when I was on vacation in Victoria. I literally spent my vacation outside in a park, reading. The books owe a huge debt to Glen Cook’s ‘Black Company’ series but the first couple of books grabbed me**

But I soured on the ‘Malazan book of the Fallen’ series and quit reading with “Toll the Hounds”. Erickson’s characters didn’t feel real, in the same way that David Edding’s characters stopped feeling real. What they were, was whiny and when they weren’t emo bitches, they were over-powered killing machines. The series turned from fantasy into a comic book. What saved the setting, which had and has promise, was Ian Esslemont’s books. One of the most recent of his work that I’ve read is “Stoneweilder”.

Esslemont writes two sorts of Malazan books. The first are ‘stand alone’ stories, the second are ‘fix it’. The ‘fix it’ stories are books where he is resolving plot threads set up by Erickson’s books. More enjoyable are his ‘stand alone’ stories, like “Stoneweilder”.

Now let me tell you why I really liked this book:

Characters.

That’s what it boils down to. Yes, Esslemont is better with plotting his novels and on executing on his plots, and that counts. But characters are where he really impressed me. They were well-rounded, conflicted, heroic. Even the bad guys, and some of them are very bad, had clear motivations.*** They had things they cared about. Characters that care, even in bad causes, make us as readers care. You don’t WANT the necromancer to succeed in his goals but his fears, his challenges (dealing with incompetent commanders) and his own inner conflicts made me want to read more.

That is really impressive. If you can make me care about the bad guys, you’ve just hit it out of the park.

But the plot is also pleasing. One thing we see in Esslemont’s books is the daily life of the Malazan empire. Erickson’s books tend to go off on tangents with deserters, wanderers and other emo poster children. Esslemont focuses on the soldiers of the empire and their antagonists. Clear goals on both sides. This time, the Malazan empire is taking care of some old business. The new emperor, who seems less of fuckwad than the old empress, Laseen, has commanded that one of the big thorns in their side be removed. An invasion partially succeeded on this continent**** but the occupation troops went rogue and stopped sending tax money back to the empire. In addition to this little (or not so little) rebellion, the Malazan empire relies on the rule of the sea and this region has been almost impregnable by sea, so there are other political concerns to motivate the conquest. So we have revenge, realpolik and suppression of the rebel Malazan troops.

Meanwhile the ‘locals’ have a two front war. One is an eternal enemy, constant as the tide, which they are literally fighting back every winter. A massive sea wall with fortifications, guarded by elite fanatical soldiers and conscripted slave-soldiers, is under constant assault each year by warriors that live within the waves themselves. Great concept, made even more urgent as we learn that the fortifications are crumbling from centuries of battering from the sea and ice. The other front is a religious revolution from inside...somewhere. (again, the geography is a little vague)

I can’t spend time recounting the whole plot, so I’ll skip over a full summary. What happens is somewhat less important than why it happens and why it worked for me.

Clear goals, good characters with needs, wants and humanizing details. There are very few superheroes here. (Yes, there are a few but only a few, thankfully. And they have problems, too, mostly the other superheroes...which worked, I guess?) The people felt real. The culture felt real. The tone was active. Too much of Erickson’s work is grim and dark and fatalistic. No idea why he writes like that but he does. Here, a culture is literally facing extinction but everyone’s attitude is defiant, brave even. These ARE the bad guys, in many ways, but you can’t help rooting for them because they haven’t given up, not even to the very end. I admire that kind of heroism.

Another kudo is religion. Erickson’s problem with religion in general is an essay and a half all by itself. But here, the religion works. In a world where the gods are real (though what constitutes a god is a big confusing) but very hands off, seemingly, here we have an interventionist god. A god that, in this region at least, is omnipresent and has limited omniscient, who can empower her worshippers and answer prayers. That makes a powerful augment for a working theocracy, even if there are, of course, evil undercurrents in the religion. But on the whole, for the first half of the book, the theocracy and the religion...worked. And that’s all a culture needs, it needs to work. And as the evil details of the religion are revealed to the reader and to the characters in the book, we get to root for those trying to defy the evil goddess and feel sorry for the true believers who put their faith in someone bad.

Anyway, good book. Great conflict, exciting battles...which a few too many ‘modern’ touches, as per my last rant/post. But still, good stuff. If you like fantasy, I highly recommend Ian Esslemont.

*I always picture a Mexican restaurant when I see that word. Maybe it’s just me.

**Actually, the first one was a hot mess. Unnecessarily confusing but it had some big magic, some cool characters that had not yet worn out their welcome. The second book, Deadhouse Gates, was and is a very, very good fantasy novel.

***With the exception of Greymane. His motivations were too murky, for too long. Which is a problem since he’s the titular character. It didn’t ruin the books, though, since he got surprisingly little screen time. And he is not, surprisingly, a POV character.

****One flaw with the world is that it is too big. Too many contients and they are not clearly mapped in relation to each other. So I honestly don’t know where in the world this is happening and where this is in relation to, say, Genabackis or the Imperial capital.

I debated opening this can of worms but what the heck. I was reading some fantasy and some historical fiction recently. The fantasy was some of Steven Erikson’s (Steve Lundin) Malazan books and Ian Esslemont’s books set in the same world, specifically ‘Stoneweilder’. The historical fant…I mean, historical fiction was ‘The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln’ by Stephen Carter. All three books had some jarring modernity in them (though the Esslemont book had slightly less and had other saving graces).

What I mean by that is that the characters were all created and viewed and acted through a modern day lens. They were not creatures of their time and environment but rather creations designed to satisfy modern sensibilities.

Steven Erikson’s female characters, for example. Each and every main character is a deadly killing machine, tough and unsentimental…basically a guy with tits. Frankly the topic of women warriors in a low-tech environment is a ball of yarn in and of itself but the fact that they exist in his novels isn’t to explore what the effects of mixed-gender military units in a ‘basically medieval fantasy’ world. They’re there because the author seems to be product of PC academia where women being the physical equal of men is an article of faith. If the women acted like women, it wouldn’t jar so much. If the women were occasionally shown to be different in some or any way from the male characters, it wouldn’t jar so much. But this fantasy series, like so many others, are there to refute traditional gender roles without actually exploring them. It’s a cheap ‘check box’ mentality and its one reason I don’t consider Erikson/Lundin to be a good writer.

But the Malazan books are basically comic books, not fantasy. Or they’re 2nd edition D&D where the characters can take dozens or hundreds of sword blows without effect. Ian Esslemont is playing in the same world, though I think he’s better at storytelling and character development. What dinged me wasn’t so much his female characters (some of whom managed to be more that ‘men with tits’), but his battle scenes. One in particular felt more like a WWII firefight, with arrows in place of bullets. The tactics and strategy of the campaign owed more to Omar Bradley or Montgomery than Homer or Alexander or Ceasar. The battle felt modern and it was written to evoke the feeling of being in combat but the feeling of being in modern combat, not medieval combat.

Stephen’s Carter’s alternate-history, fantasy, historical…I don’t what you want to call it. Basically it assumes that Lincoln survived the assassination attempt and gets put on trial for the Constitutional violations that he did, in fact, do in order to save the Union. This is revisionist speculative fantasy in its basic concept, what makes it worse is his protagonist: a 21 black woman, a college graduate who is anointed to help defend Lincoln in his impeachment trial. Like Esslemont, Carter isn’t a bad writer like Erickson but he’s engaging the same revisionist wish fulfillment. Now, there were female and black college graduates, Mary Jane Patterson earned a B.A. degree in 1863 but they were about as common as women who can graduate from Ranger training using male physical standards. They exist, they’re as rare as drawing a royal flush in high stakes poker.

Carter and Erickson want all the benefits of modern race and gender relations without any of the hard work and history that went into it. I get it, they want fantasy as escapism, they want to create a better past than the messy and un-PC world that really existed. And as escapism, I don’t judge it. Let folks read what they want to read.

But it jars me and, I suspect, anyone with more than a little knowledge of history. The weight of it, the sheer number of books where they have ‘fantasy easy mode’, where there’s birth control and no racism or sexism or traditional gender roles or even much ‘true’ religion has the effect of layering fiction on top of fiction. That the world we have today existed in the past, or even better than the world we have today. Then it stops being escapism but becomes part of the narrative of how ‘right thinking people’ have always thought. It’s an attempt to re-write history. And that means building a world based on lies.

Maybe I’m going too far, I’ve been accused of taking things too seriously by friends, family and people on the street. But I do take fiction seriously. Because these are the stories we tell about how things were, how they should be and how we’d like them to be. That’s the role of fantasy and science fiction to me. So when you have people with black skin or green skin rubbing elbows without any attempt to show how people reject and fear that which is different from them, it cheapens the characters, it cheapens the world. It becomes less ‘real’. When you have women warriors fighting alongside men, wearing the same armor, bearing the same loads without conflict and without drama, it cheapens the real women warriors who fought way uphill for just the chance to succeed or fail in that most masculine of worlds. When you have someone who is both a woman AND a minority come into a world where none existed and they’re welcomed with open arms…well, you’re just writing a Mary Sue character and you might as well give her silver hair and golden eyes and magical powers.

There’s a cost to all things. Nothing is easy. Show things how they were. Show the struggle, the drama of your characters and then we’ll weep with their failures and cheer their successes. Easy, revisionist writing doesn’t do anyone any favors.

Another story off into the void. I wrote two flash pieces during the last weekend (I almost did three but ran out of time) and they’re now cleaned up and ready for the world.

My goal for the second half of the year is to submit more. I have been pretty good at putting out content, at least as first draft. Now is the time to take the next step: getting it out there. And not just short stories. I have three novels completed, one is almost done with the editing and ready for Amazon. I am going to try very hard to actually do the work required to get them ready and then send them out. The ‘sending out’ is the hard part for me.

I don’t know if its laziness or a writerly reluctance to let people see my flaws, as every editing pass I do, I seem to find something wrong. My guess is it’s a bit a both. I do have a certain anxiety regarding Smooth Running, since it’s my first novel and had its plot grafted on midway through the drafting process. On the other hand, I know my stuff is good. Some of it might even be great. So what am I afraid of?

Everything.

But that’s no excuse. I’ll keep sending stuff out and I’ll do a better job of keeping you up to date. For all you other writers out there, just send it out.